Pipe art stretches creative limits at San Clemente smoke shop

San Clemente resident Brittney Potter, 28, manages Innerlimits Smoke Shop in San Clemente. Potter says her customers are the best thing about her job. "It's never boring in here," she says. "We have 18-year-olds up to 80-year-old grandmothers coming in."DAVID BRO, FOR THE REGISTER

What you can expect to pay

Glass and wood pipes: about $20 to start for wood and $130 for art glass

Clothing, T-shirts and hats: about $20 on average

Hookahs and hookah tobacco: $20 to $100

Lighters: $50 for Zippos, $5 for disposables

Dirty Rico, Mako, Banjo, LaceFace, Hitman, Epok and Psihu are just a few of the people whom Brittney Potter does business with every day. Their names sound like they survived the zombie apocalypse, but really they are glass blowers.

Potter, 28, store manager at Innerlimits Smoke Shop in San Clemente, sells the art they make in the form of elaborate glass pipes. Potter figures she has at least 5,000 individual pipes and says you would be hard-pressed to find any single piece that looks exactly like anything else in the store.

The glass blowers, working mostly out of Oregon, let their imaginations take over, with pipes resembling giant octopuses, cartoon characters and futuristic spaceships. Some resemble Hello Kitty or the Simpsons. Others include a smiling garden snail and a large black spider hanging out on the pipe stem.

Water pipes are used to filter the tar from smoke and intensify the flavor of the tobacco. Like a traditional pipe with a mouthpiece, a tobacco enthusiast will inhale the tobacco smoke as it burns in a bowl, except the smoke first passes through water reservoir the user pours into the pipe. Water pipes cost from $15 to one made by Banjo that sells for about $9,000. It could be described as a 24-inch-tall glass cactus in the colors of the Jamaican flag. Several attachments are available to be changed out depending on the amount of tobacco used.

Potter, a San Clemente resident, said the decade-old business has done so well that it has opened two more stores in Huntington Beach. But her favorite part about working in the shop are her regular customers "They always have ... something new they are looking for," she said. "Plus, we have a few coins glued to the floor so if people are new, they always try to pick them up. We're always laughing; it's fun in here every day."

On a recent Monday, as many as a dozen people were shopping at a time – a few for incense, some for spray oils, one for Zig-Zag cigarette papers. A pair of twentysomething men gathered up a spread of almost everything the store offers.

One couple looked at a vaporizer, a baseball-cap-size unit that heats tobacco with a heating element instead of a flame. Though not entirely smokeless, vaporizers emit much less smoke and are thought to burn the tobacco more efficiently. Potter says the store sells a lot of them, with some costing as much as $600.

The store carries electronic cigarettes made in China, as well as some imported hookahs – water pipes used mostly in the Middle East and parts of Asia.

"We have something for everyone and at whatever they are looking to pay," Potter said. "There is culture in this art form, and it's something you can use too. We have 18-year-olds in here, all the way up to 80-year-old grandmothers."

3 QUESTIONS WITH MANAGER BRITTNEY POTTER

Q. What is the best thing about working in a smoke shop?

A. We have fun customers. We have regulars, and we never know when they are going to come in, but it's always something new or a funny story. Also, people come in and they are excited by what we have; their jaws drop.

Q. What has been the most challenging aspect as store manager?

A. Meeting everyone's needs and to have something for everybody at every price range and in every quality all the time.

Q. What are the trends for smoke shops?

A. Maybe not a trend, but what is not going away is that most of our products are made in the USA and there is big support for that by us and our customers. The water pipes are made all over California and Oregon, so it's really local. The people who make the art glass are a real community.

San Clemente resident Brittney Potter, 28, manages Innerlimits Smoke Shop in San Clemente. Potter says her customers are the best thing about her job. "It's never boring in here," she says. "We have 18-year-olds up to 80-year-old grandmothers coming in." DAVID BRO, FOR THE REGISTER
This glass pipe, made by Psihu, sells for $130. It's one of a kind. DAVID BRO, FOR THE REGISTER
Innerlimits store manager Brittney Potter holds a blinged-out lighter made by Zippo that's priced at about $50. DAVID BRO, FOR THE REGISTER
This octopus water pipe is made by Mako and sells for $2,000. The mouthpiece is at the top of the octopus head. The water and tobacco are placed in the bowl at the top of the anchor. Water pipes are meant to filter most of the tar out of the tobacco smoke and generally help intensify the flavor of the tobacco. DAVID BRO, FOR THE REGISTER
Glass blower LaceFace works only in flowers, mostly orchids. This glass water pipe sells for about $4,000. DAVID BRO, FOR THE REGISTER
This water pipe, made by Banjo in Oregon, is priced at about $9,000. It comes wtih attachments. DAVID BRO, FOR THE REGISTER
This glass and ceramic pipe sells for about $260 at Innerlimits Smoke Shop in San Clemente. The maker is unknown. DAVID BRO, FOR THE REGISTER
Vaporizers use a heating element that burns tobacco. They emit little smoke. They sell in a range of $50 to $600. This one by Vaporite is priced at about $90 at Innerlimits Smoke Shop. DAVID BRO, FOR THE REGISTER
Innerlimits Smoke Shop in San Clemente carries a full line of tobacco products, including cigars. The store has a climate-controlled walk-in humidor to maintain the products' freshness. DAVID BRO, FOR THE REGISTER
Innerlimits Smoke Shop in San Clemente sells everything any tobacco enthusiast would need, including Zig-Zag wrapping papers. DAVID BRO, FOR THE REGISTER
This clear glass water pipe made by Dirty Rico sells for about $150. DAVID BRO, FOR THE REGISTER
Glass blowers often borrow the looks and graphics of common designs or symbols not traditionally associated with tobacco products, like this Hello Kitty-inspired water pipe. It is priced at $200 at Innerlimits Smoke Shop. DAVID BRO, FOR THE REGISTER
These hookah pipes are imported and sell for about $20 each. Innerlimits Smoke Shop carries several different models priced up to $300. DAVID BRO, FOR THE REGISTER
These metal and wood canisters are meant to store and pack tobacco. They're priced at $20 and up. DAVID BRO, FOR THE REGISTER
A book at Innerlimits Smoke Shop in San Clemente shows the work of glass blowers who collaborated to make chess pieces, among other items. DAVID BRO, FOR THE REGISTER
Brittney Potter, who manages Innerlimits Smoke Shop in San Clemente, holds a handcarved wood pipe that is priced at $70. DAVID BRO, FOR THE REGISTER
These laser-etched glass pipes made by Liberty Glass sell for $350 to $600. DAVID BRO, FOR THE REGISTER

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